A Please For Intellectual Honesty

[DemocratSinceBirth]

These are some of the major post Iraq War 1 American military operations:

Haiti

Somalia

Bosnia

Kosovo

maintenance of the no fly zones over southern Iraq

the Afghanistan War

Iraq War 2

To the best of my knowledge, Mr.'s Gephardt, Graham, Edwards, Dean, Kerry, Lieberman and Clark largely supported all these operations through vote or deed except for Iraq War 2......



Yet I see the supporters of these sundry candidates accusing the other candidates of being warmongers... To the dispassionate analyst it seems those guys have alot more in common than their supporters care to admit....

IMHO, they all subscribe to the interventionist lite school and use the defense/foreign policy paradigm that Woodrow Wilson gave the Democratic party some ninety years ago....

on edit- there might be a more artful term than "interventionist lite" but I did it to disabuse anybody of the notion that the Democratic party is a pacifistic party...

[wryter2000]

1. Not through vote or deed

Dean didn't get a vote on any of those things. He was never in the Congress. If you're claiming he did something in support of them, you'd better show it to me.

[WilliamPitt]

5. A quickie

"He was adamantly against the war in Iraq, which 62 percent of the country still supports, and while he is no dove--he says he supported every post-Vietnam U.S. intervention through Kosovo..."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.sullivan.html

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. God Bless You...

I wasted one half hour of my life to document what should have been an obvious point....

The whole point of my post was to illustrate that among the mainstream contenders there is more agreement than disagreement on foreign policy and defense issues....

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

2. excellent point

The spectre of establishment Dems posing as "anti-war" is laughable, and the hypocrisy is just incredible. I think voting strictly over the IWR is ridiculous.

[wuushew]

3. Clinton believed military intervention was justified regarding genocide

Especially when you have the support of your friends and allies.

I support the Clinton Balkan policy, not some of his other deeds however.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. Edwards took his seat in 1999

Please get your damned facts straight. You can slam him as much as you want on the No-fly zone actions and the war resolution passage, but the rest is guesswork on your part. He's not so happy on the pursuit of international support for the Iraq resolution either. I'm not going to absolve him on this, I'm upset about it too.

This is like much of the Deanies tactics: lump them all together and blame them all--with intimation of their being cowardly herd animals--for the varied actions of the individuals.

Somalia was something inherited from Bush 1, and Kosovo was the right thing to do. We SHOULD have intervened in Rwanda too, and at least Clinton has repeatedly said that he made a mistake by not doing so.

[StephNW4Clark]

7. Rwanda intervention

FYI - Clark lobbied hard for intervention in Rwanda. One of his main foreign policy principles is that - when situations become so grave and humanitarian crises can no longer be averted - the US and its allies should use the military with other resources to stop genocide.

[charlie]

8. I think you're reading it wrong POE

DSB is using their concurrence as a defense of their actions, not an excoriation. It's not a slam on Edwards or the others.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. This Thread Was Not Intended To Be An Endorsement Of Any Candidate

or any school of foreign policy but I'll share my opinion with you if you desire....


I was just stating the obvious that a foreign policy paradigm exists within the Demnocratic party that most, not all elected officials subscribe to...

That being said... I am not saying there aren't folks who deviate from this line...


on edit -spelling <i am an awful typist>...

I like John Edwards alot... He is a true gentleman...

[bryant69]

6. I don't know what Interventionist lite means, but

I suspect I suscribe to that school of thought as well. THere are times when military action is unavoidable, and there are moments when it is completely justified. That's the way life is.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Eloriel]

11. Well that's a cool way to dilute and diminish the reality

Of that works for you, fine, I guess.

It doesn't work for me. Nor am I as sure as you seem to be about my candidate's support of the other listed conflicts other than Iraq 1 and Afghanistan.

I see the Iraq invasion as about 10 times worse than all those others put together. And there's not anything you or anyone else could say to change that. It was a thoroughly unnecessary, illegal, immoral, unjustified and unjustifiable war, one which killed thousands of innocent people (and I include the Iraqi troops in that category) and nothing will EVER, EVER change that. AFAIC that war put a huge stain not just on our international reputation, but our very soul.

And DON'T try to convince me that any of these guys voted Yes for any other reason that self-serving political calculus.

Eloriel

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. You Are Defeating The Puropose Of The Post

by elevating your candidate to sainthood while consigning all the other candidates to Hell but I'll call on my better angels not to play your game....

If Dean as Amy Sullivan states, supported every American military action post Viet Nam through Kosovo he has supported military actions that some might find every bit as objectionable as Iraq War 2....


on edit- added "every bit"...